RACIAL INCIDENT AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

A little over a month of college has gone by and I have decided to be done with my little “hiatus” because writing and making videos makes me feel productive and like I am doing something worthwhile. I also was debating for the past few days on what I should blog about as my grand return, and then an incident happened on my college campus that got me very angered and frustrated.

5 days ago, at about 10pm, a man came onto American University’s campus and put up posters with the Confederate flag stating “Huzzah For Dixie” “I wish I was in the land of Cotton” and attached to each poster was a cotton plant. The act was in response to the announcement made by professor Ibram X. Kendi for the new Antiracist Research and Policy Center. News surfaced around the school pretty fast because of social media and by the next morning, all the students received an email from the president, Sylvia Burwell, addressing the racist incident that took place the night prior.

When I got wind of what happened, I was not surprised, which I did think much about at first but then realized that not being surprised is not a good thing. I have become so desensitized to incidents like this that my first instinct was to brush it off and not be mad or upset. The more I realized this, the angrier I got that in 2017 we still have some idiots that don’t stand for equality in every aspect. I continued to get frustrated but addressed this in quite. Lucky for me, I am part of such an active student body at American University and so many people here constantly voice their opinion and band together so they can have an even bigger presence. The day after the racist incident occurred Sylvia Burwell hosted a town hall for debriefing and an overwhelming amount of people showed up (they were overflowing out the doors and onto the quad).

It was very reassuring for me to see all the support that students and professors on campus gave. I thought people would be apathetic to the racist act and not really talk about it but the student body and professors had the opposite response. This helped me come to my realization that it is okay to be mad and frustrated with these acts; just people there are many incidents of racism, that doesn’t make the next incident any less significant than the last.

I decided to start blogging again and come back specifically on this post because it made me realize that my opinions and emotions are valid and to not let anyone or anything make you feel otherwise. Stay safe, everyone.